The present invention relates generally to the field of buildings, and, in its most preferred embodiments, to prefabricated building panels used in the construction of buildings.
Prefabricated building panels, hereafter referred to simply as building panels, have been known of and used for quite some time. Building panels are typically constructed at one location and transported to another location where they are attached to one another to fabricate a building. Building panels are constructed in a variety of configurations and from a variety of materials. Wood and concrete are examples of materials from which building panels are constructed. Concrete building panels are often preferred over wooden panels for a variety of reasons. For example, wood is much more susceptible to termites and rotting than is concrete, trees are presently considered to be a more threatened natural resource than are the products from which concrete is fabricated, and concrete has a much longer potential life-span than does wood.
While concrete building panels have some advantages, typical concrete building panels can have some disadvantages. For example, while concrete has a high compression strength, it has a relatively low tensile strength. Therefore, it is often necessary to imbed reinforcement members in concrete building panels in order to improve their tensile strength. Also, conventional concrete building panels are typically simple concrete slabs that are planar on both sides. In many building situations, such a concrete slab is not suitable alone for use as a completed wall. For example, such a concrete slab alone cannot function suitably as a wall because it would not provide "wall cavities" for the conventional placement of other components used in the fabrication of buildings. For example, it is often necessary to suitably install insulation, plumbing, and electrical wiring within "wall cavities" that are accessible from within a building structure, and then to apply, for example, wallboard over the "wall cavities". Therefore, conventional concrete building panels are usually used as veneer-like structures behind which a substructure must be employed.
There is, therefore, a need in the industry for a method and an apparatus which address these and other related, and unrelated, problems.